Mister Brisbane: Star struck
I share some celebrity stories, and take a stroll down Redcliffe's Bee Gees Way
On social media recently, I was reminded of the time Celine Dion came to Brisbane on a promotional tour, before her huge international success. In the comments, Tony asked me about my best and worst celeb interviewees. His favourite was Tom Jones, who “despite his fame was such a gentleman and not acting like the star he really was”.
I responded at the time but I’ve had some more time to think since then, so here’s my amended and expanded list (drawn entirely from memory, and with some exclusions for personal and/or legal reasons):
Vanilla Ice. He had a whole floor of the Brisbane Hilton to himself and I had to be searched by his body guards before the interview. He was very full of himself (on the back of his sole huge hit, Ice, Ice Baby) and let’s just say that much of what he claimed about himself could not be independently verified.
The late Chrissie Amphlett was in a difficult mood when I spoke to her in the Brisbane office of her record company. She was evasive and a little precious when asked, in a very sensitive way, about her then-current hit I Touch Myself.
Aussie actor Ben Mendelsohn was, ahem, not on the same page when we spoke about the film The Big Steal, but his co-star Claudia Karvan was very pleasant and helpful.
Sylvester McCoy (pictured, above with me), who came to Brisbane with Colin Baker for a Doctor Who-related event, was great fun. After his own gig, he came along to the Brisbane Film Festival opening-night party and we had a wonderful time. He told me some stories I can’t repeat here. (Sorry, Whovians.)
Ben Elton (below with me) and Billy Bragg are probably my all-time favourites. I spoke to them, separately, a few times, and they were always engaged in the conversation, made intelligent observations, and made my laugh. Once, when we were at e’cco, Ben went over to the table where my bosses happened to be dining and told them what a great bloke I was.
Lorraine Bayly was lovely. A week or two after I interviewed her, she came up to me at an after-party for her own show and said, “I don’t know if you remember me…”
I had some fun times with Amanda Muggleton, although after I penned a lukewarm review of one of her shows she was quick to remind me of that fact. She dragged me around the function held after the Helpmann Awards at Sydney’s Star Casino, introducing me to other famous folk with: “This is Brett. Sometimes he writes nice things about me; sometimes he doesn’t”
It was only a phone interview, but I made a connection with American actor Jerry Stiller. After the interview, for the film The Heartbreak Kid, he asked the publicist to call me back and say it was the best interview he’d done! I think it’s because I was happy to speak to him about his own illustrious career, including his grounding in vaudeville, rather than just about his role in Seinfeld and his famous son, Ben.
When I was on hold waiting to speak to Tom Arnold about True Lies, I was instructed by the publicist not to mention Roseanne, with whom he was going through an ugly divorce. I made a mental note to make that the last question. But there was no need, because as soon as I got on the line and said, “Hi Tom, how’s it going?”, his immediate reply was, “Great, since I got rid of that [expletive]…”
BY ANY OTHER NAME
And are you a Brisburbian? Or a Bribaneite? Maybe you don’t mind being called a Brizzo. According to the Sunday Mail, architect Peter Edwards reckons that’s all too daggy — and he says denizens of the River City should be called “Brisians”. Because it’s got more flair, isn’t it?
BEACH BOY
My father used to insist that the Gibb family lived, for a short time at least, in a Housing Commission home on Dawson Parade in Grovely, now Keperra — around the corner from where I grew up. That may be true, but it’s Redcliffe that claims the special connection to the Bee Gees, the group formed by brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb (who may or may not have attended my alma mater, Grovely State School at one stage). So on my recent trip to Redcliffe — gee, its changed a lot (mostly for the better) since I was a kid — I had to take a stroll down Bee Gees Way. There’s some stylish artwork, a lot of information about the band through the eras, and a video wall with a welcome from Barry.
The alleyway musical museum is near a range of restaurants and opposite the beach. Well, I say “beach”, even though there’s not a lot of sand — but there are some great trees, a swimming pool and a skateboard park-cum-basketball court. Not a bad place to take the kids — or even to visit on one’s own.
P.S. The beach suburb has some interesting sights, but the Moreton Bay District Council headquarters isn’t one of them. Nevertheless, that’s where Siri took me when I simply asked for directions to Redcliffe.
IN THE BIN
When I went to bring in my wheelie bin last week, I discovered that it wasn’t empty. Seems that after the rubbish truck had been and gone, somebody put a bag in my bin — one, I discovered later, that was full of used kitty litter.
Who would do this? Was it a random act or have I offended someone?
P.S. I sprayed a shedload of Glen20 into the bin, hoping it wouldn’t stink out the place before the next collection.
ALTERED STATES?
Replying to my item last week on the idea of breaking up Brisbane City Council into smaller, more manageable local authorities, former Queenslander Dan says: “Living in Sydney, the one thing I have missed is having councils that have the size and resources of BCC. Multiple councils mean that every council needs to pay for individual council chambers and the real estate costs with that, each replicates backroom staff (handling the day-to-day administration such as payroll and other non-citizen facing work), and then there’s always the inevitable need for every council to spend money to develop their own marketing campaigns.
“Large scale local governance has significant benefits. If anything, Brisbane and its surrounding LGAs might be better served by integrating. Of course, once you follow that line of thinking it reaches the question about the value of three tiers of government with the council level government seeming the most essential.”
So perhaps the real question is: do we need state governments? Given the events of the past 18 months, with each state going their own way in responding to the pandemic, I’m sure there are strong opinions on both sides of that argument.
IS IT A BUS? IS IT A TRAIN? …
Brisbane City Council has unveiled its new Metro vehicle which it says is unlike anything ever seen before in Australia. It looks like a bendy bus to me.
QUESTION OF THE WEEK
On Twitter last week, I wrote: “Elizabeth Taylor was my great-grandmother. Or, to be more exact, my great-grandmother was named Elizabeth Taylor. She was not a movie star. Does anybody out there have a famous or notorious name? Has it caused confusion? Do you embrace it or would you rather have another moniker?”
Sal says: “Back in the day (the 80s), Elizabeth Taylor waited on tables at the Sebel Town House in Sydney. She gets around, that one!”
Cathy: “My Dad’s name is John Farnham. I used to tell people that he was John Farnham before John Farnham.”
Katherine: “I have distant-ish ancestors surnamed Frankenstein and Mulder. And I only found out about them *after* I became an X-Files fan.”
Kurtis: “I worked with a Dean Martin.”
Any others?
FEEDBACK
Philip says: “Mister Brisbane touched one of my pet peeves ... getting customer surveys before I’ve even gotten the product. Ordering is not the end of the service.”